Libertarian – Page 11 – RAnt(hony)-ings

Ideally There Would Be No Idealists

So I get a response from Mr. Bylund the other day to my Blog entry, and I keep meaning to write up my own reply, and just never get around to it. I am a man of many passions (as this blog should quite readily show) I once spent an (in hindsight) inordinate amount of time on politics and political thought, but those days are quickly receding into the past. Much like the message he sent me.

Then, lo and behold, I notice he’s added comments to the blog entry itself.

Hello Mr. Bylund! I’m not ignoring you, I just think that achieving the anarchist ideal ranks somewhere behind science fiction fandom and humor (and living in the here and now) on the importance list. I establish my own values, just like I know and uphold my own rights. I don’t look to government to maintain them for me, but to abstain from violating them in the process of doing its legitimate work.

I read your comments through several times. This is the paragraph which I feel the need to specifically address:

To minarchists, the anarchist position is utterly utopian, perhaps even idealistic, and they conclude it would not work. Such a society could quickly degenerate into chaos and misery since there is no final arbiter in conflicts and no power to leash or control the evils unavoidably existent in society. The reasoning is that there needs to be something larger, but external to the market, setting the basic rules and enforcing them. Without the enforcement of rights, there are no rights.

The key phrase here is final arbiter. Government is legitimate, in my estimation, when it:

Violates no rights in maintaining its existence.
Acts only as the final arbiter in a conflict.

While I don’t know of any government that meets this criteria that is currently in existence, I believe that it is possible to attain (I would refer to Nozick’s state as government because that is the word that fits the purpose being served) What I do hear from Anarchists that argue with me on the necessity of government is that they have a plan to substitute the structure that is government for another structure which does essentially the same job, but isn’t government. My counter argument will always be a rose by any other name. It is still government no matter what it’s called.

When I point out to them that anarchy is chaos by definition and that political anarchy, to be true to its definition, would require that there is no structure (which I will always call government) in order for it to be called anarchy,that the resultant society would be chaotic and prone to instability, which most likely would lead (and has lead in the past) to more repressive forms of government taking root, I’m told that I just don’t get it.

But I do get it. The anarchists want to use the word anarchy to serve as a figurehead for something that isn’t anarchy but will be different from the current government structure, a tactic which has and most likely will backfire again when acted upon. Which is why I bother to argue about this in the first place.

Utopian and idealist visions have lead to some of the worst hell holes on the planet. During the time of the Russian revolution, Anarchists and Socialists were brothers in the same cause; fighting to bring change to a Russian society that desperately needed it. The idealist Anarchists of the time thought that if they could just get rid of the Czar, the social utopia of Communism (which is a governmentless form of society, an anarchy; at least as Marx envisioned it) would soon follow. I think history will show it turned out differently.

No, I’m not saying that Anarchists are Communists. The Wiki entry should plainly show, if nothing else, that Anarchists don’t even know what Anarchists are. Which is fitting, considering the definition of the word anarchy. Chaos is its own definition.

Every time I find myself butting heads with someone politically, I discover that the someone in question has some ideal vision in his head concerning what should be the way things work. A Utopia for which they just won’t accept any substitutions. Unfortunately reality doesn’t consult with us concerning it’s inner workings. In an ideal world, there would be no idealists. That’s my idea of utopia. You can thank your lucky stars that I don’t believe in utopias.

If we want structures to serve the purposes we intend for them, then we have to look at the constraints that reality places on us and design them to fit. Self-funding support bodies for essential government functions (i.e. the cost of police and fire departments being funded by the insurance companies and land owners that profit from their existence) is just one vein of thought on the subject. Government structures that don’t violate rights simply by existing in the first place.

Suffice it to say I’ve put some thought into this, and I doubt that there is much that can be said that will sway me from my opinion.

Children’s Rights, Drugs and School

From the Archive. There was a proposal a few years back by a nearby school district to require drug testing for all children engaged in extracurricular activities. As a free thinker and a libertarian I had a problem with this. I don’t know if the proposal was ever adopted. I do know that my mind remains unchanged on the subject.

I am the guardian of my children’s rights. To submit children to drug testing without probable cause violates the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments to the constitution, just on the face of it, no matter what the SCOTUS ultimately says.

I find it offensive that the school has decided to exclude my children from extracurricular activity over this issue. I say this because I will not allow my child’s rights to be violated, and they will not be allowed to participate without testing.

If I feel that the evidence warrants testing, rest assured I will see that they are tested. But the state has no business getting involved in this issue. My children will not be involved in extracurricular activities if testing is required. My children will not be in school if testing is required of the entire student body.

Further, anyone who submits to a drug test for ANY REASON when not under arrest is abdicating their rights under the constitution. They are admitting guilt until proven innocent.

There comes a point where you can yield no further ground on an issue. That point has been reached. If you want to end the threat of drugs in the school REMOVE THE PROFIT, LEGALIZE THEM.

It really is that simple. Prohibition does not work, we proved that nearly a century ago.

are you willing to open that can of worms [children’s rights] for the liberals?

It’s not a can of worms, because you are misconstruing my post. The child has no rights directly (again, in spite of what the SCOTUS says) They are not adults, they do not comprehend actions and consequences as a general rule, and they do not think at an adult level. However, as the parent, I am charged with guarding the rights of my children. It falls to me, and to no one else, to do this.

If someone fails in their duty as parent, the child should be free to seek whatever shelter can be found; be it private charity or government action. If the child can prove that he/she is able to function as an adult, then he/she is no longer a child and should have the ability to seek redress for harm done like any adult.

Children do not stay children, they become adults. Parents who fail to realize this natural order of things (and I know a few who fall in this category) deserve whatever comes to them when the adult who was their child takes offense at the liberties taken by negligent, or even over-protective, parents. Religion is no excuse for mistreatment of a child; there is, in fact, no excuse for mistreatment. None.

…as far as I read it you were stating it’s a violation of the children’s rights to be drug tested. But as you just stated the children do not have many rights by law. So you’re saying its ok for a parent to violate a child’s rights but not the government’s right [to do so]?

The government has no rights, only individuals have rights. Some will tell you that the government is an illusion, like the spoon in the Matrix. But I digress.

I’m always amazed at the confusion most people exhibit when the subject of rights comes up. I’m amazed because the first document of a free America proclaims the existence of inalienable rights, and amazed because the concept is so clear to me.

To put it simply: Children are potential adults. If they succeed in reaching maturity then they are adults. All adults have rights, they are the same rights no matter where you live (despite what the Chinese premier thinks) because they come from what makes us living, thinking individuals. Children have potential rights, and these are vested in the guardian or parent whose job it is to ensure that the child matures into a responsible adult.

A parent can violate a child’s rights. Negligence, abuse, or some other failure of guidance should be seen as a breaking of the trust that is parenthood.

In demanding drug testing, the gov’t and the school have determined that all the children are guilty until proven innocent. Any parent who yields to the pressure and allows their child to be tested in this fashion allows their children’s rights to be violated, and in so doing, abdicates their right to be called parent.

Postscript

The practice, once established, spreads.

Several districts in Texas have drug testing in place. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 broadened the authority of public schools to test children for illegal drugs by allowing for the inclusion of middle and high school students participating in extracurricular programs, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Testing had previously been allowed only for student athletes.
usatoday.com

Immigration, Take 2

An Anarchist friend of mine suggested that I wouldn’t find anything to object to in “The Libertarian Immigration Conundrum“ by Per Bylund. However, I didn’t get into the second paragraph without doing so.

On the one hand, it is not possible as a libertarian to support a regulated immigration policy, since government itself is never legitimate.
Mises.org

I don’t want to argue with anarchists, I really don’t. It’s counterproductive. I want government out of my life, they want government out of their lives, we shouldn’t have to argue about the little nit picky things like government legitimacy.

And then one of them goes and throws a bombshell like the above. For the record, there are two kinds (at least) of libertarians. One group freely calls themselves anarchist (technically anarcho-capitalist) and takes the above view. The other (far larger) group just wants less government interference in day to day life (Less government interference = more freedom) some of us freely use the label that Robert Nozick (that Per Bylund references in his piece) coined for us, Minarchist, which loosely translates into “The least amount of government needed.” Mr Bylund himself must therefore be aware that his sweeping generalization is in error, but he goes on with the article anyway based on this erroneous assessment of Libertarians.

The reason that open borders is the right way to look at immigration policy is pragmatic, not idealistic. Pragmatically, the cost to close borders is prohibitively high, just in monetary terms. The cost in lost privacy, freedom, etc. doesn’t even bear thinking about (which is why anyone that advocates closing the borders isn’t a libertarian) Realistically, we have never been able to close the borders, not even in a state of war.

Which is why we should just let ’em in. Get whatever information the control freaks think we have to have in order to track the new immigrants (fingerprints, DNA, retinal scans, whatever) and let them get to work. I don’t have time for fantastical arguments concerning natural rights and the ownership of the commons, those sorts of things can be saved for the day that the anarchists get rid of government. I doubt that I’ll be there for that.

Postscript

Wait a minute. What did I say in that last paragraph? I don’t have time to argue about rights? Who is this imposter?

Immigrants Mucking Up Our Country

Listening to Boortz today (Yeah, I know it was a repeat, so what?) He goes raging on about closing our borders so as to deflect terrorists and preserve “our way of life”. I like to listen to the guy, but a libertarian he is not.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that I’ve noticed a disturbingly repetitive mantra going around for the last few years concerning closing borders and (like the title says) keeping out those immigrants mucking up our country. From where I’m sitting, the immigrants that are mucking up the country are the descendents of the European immigrants (those pesky white people) who seem bound and determined to destroy liberty in the name of security.

I’d just like to point out that, unless you are a brown-skinned native (what the average white American thinks of as Mexican but are most likely people who aren’t from Mexico at all; merely true Native Americans, those pesky indians that white settlers have never been able to get rid of, or the native populations of America that the Spanish subjugated and abused for hundreds of years. Chicanos, Hispanics, whatever you want to call yourselves) then you are the descendant of an immigrant. You have no more right to be here than those being called illegal aliens today because they crossed some line drawn on a map by people who have never been to the area in question.

And closing the border is an impossibility. You can patrol it, and turn back the migrants, but truly closing it can’t be feasibly done. Nor do I think that it’s desirable in the long run to do the limited amount of patrolling that can be done. Why? Because migrant workers do most of the work in the South and Midwest, and not just because they work cheap. I don’t know any real immigrants (white guys. see above) who are willing to work out in the sun all day, every day for a living; but I can’t count the number of natives that I’ve worked with over the years who don’t even blink at doing so. If the border could be effectively closed, the resulting price spikes for construction and food production (not to mention manufacturing) would probably devastate the economy.

So what would work? Allowing in and documenting anybody who was willing to work (one of the only things the sitting president has said that I have ever agreed with) Ending 9/10’s of the welfare programs (including corporate welfare) that act as a lure, and a crutch, for people who aren’t willing to work. Ending the empire building and military meddling around the globe that the US is engaged in. Get back to the core of what this country was about to begin with (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) and stop thinking that we have the right to demand whatever we want of the world.

And the Terrorists? Frankly, the only terrorists that we’ve seen on our own soil were trained by terrorists that we trained in Afghanistan. We seem to be our own worst enemy, or as people more poetical than me have said “We get the best enemies money can buy.” I think we should stop buying them.

I’m sure the mantra will go on. It’s a mindset that sells in this day and age; fear of others, fear of those outside. However, if you are going to go raging on about closed borders and true Americans, you are going to eventually look like an idiot, because the reality of the situation won’t be corrected by that type of rhetoric. But then I think that time has come and gone when it comes to Boortz. He is the Mighty Whitey, indeed.

To a nation built on immigration it should seem strange to have a president investing in keeping foreigners out, and considering fines on employers hiring immigrants
The Libertarian Immigration Conundrum by Per Bylund

Postscript

I was doing so well, keeping the rabid spittle from showing in my text, right up to the point where I say the part about ending government welfare. If we are cutting checks to anyone, we should be cutting checks in dollar amounts for every person on the planet, just so they know that Uncle Sam is why they can buy stuff. What comes around, goes around. Better yet send them a smartphone with a US government sponsored account funded in dollars on a monthly basis. They’ll all want to get their governments to join the United States then.

Killing In Cold Blood

Reading Knappster today (“Surf Naked for Jesus” why did you change that?) Ran across his entry on the 1000th death penalty victim. I don’t shed tears for murderers, whether they work for themselves or the state, but I do have one point I’d like to make.

The quote is:

“For some reason, apart from my general opposition to capital punishment (which pretty much comes down to “I can’t trust politicians to deliver mail on time; why the hell would I trust them to decide who needs killin’?”), I didn’t find “Tookie’s” case exceptionally compelling. Maybe if I’d studied the case more closely I would have, but I let it go by because … well, pretty much because a lot of people more prominent, more educated in the facts of the case and more interested had already taken it up. So. Anyway. Another state-sanctioned killing under the bridge.”

(emphasis added)

I can define my opposition to the death penalty quite easily. The government should not be allowed to do anything that individuals within the society are not allowed to do. Killing in self defense is allowed, and cops and prison guards should be armed (and forgiven) for actions taken in ‘self defense’ of themselves and ‘society’.

But, I have a hard time believing that an unarmed prisoner strapped to a gurney (or a chair, depending on your states murder predilection) presents any kind of a threat. And the killing of that person can only be counted as murder, making us no better than the murderer that we have exacted justice upon.

Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is preferable, in my opinion, than making myself party to murder; even if the man that we are killing “needed it”.

Postscript

I know I’m not a libertarian anymore because I feel no need to utter the word state when I mean government. When you need special words to describe the thing you hate, so that people like you can understand what you mean, you have started down the road to mass hallucination. However, the subject of killing in cold blood remains largely the same as it was back in the 90’s when I convinced myself I was a libertarian. This post was reworked for another post in 2017.

The Liberty Dollar

This is my first time to talk about it, I’m going to call it what it is. Anyway, Jason gave the site I moderate a favorable plug, I thought I’d do the same for his blog that plugs it. http://austinsilver.blogspot.com (Thanks Jason!)

I was introduced to ALD about 4 years ago by Michael Badnarik, back when he was just a computer programmer looking for work, and not the most recognizable Libertarian on the face of the planet. If I only knew then what I know now… I’d have bought more silver, that’s for sure.

I’m enjoying the fall chest crud. I’m crawling back off to bed.